Dont know what to do...

PLease excuse my spelling I am tryping this while crying. I have been worrying myself sick for sometime as I really fearmy relationship with my husband of almost 5 years is over. We had DS1 15 months into our relationship, it was an admitted accident but a happy one. We lived in ou tiny 2 bed flat owned by DH untill DS1 was 3 and DS2 was 6 months old. we moved out and have now moved back in. DH is ademant that we can not afford to move into a bgger house. We were renting a house till xmas 2011 but had to move back to flat as landlord wanted to sell house for far more than was worth. had a bit of a chat this evening and DH basically resents me for staying at home and being a stay at home mum. I tried working nights as a care worker but got sick of coming home to the washing up etc as he could not possibly do that and put kids to bed. Tonight we chatted again about money as he still says we cant afford to move....(we can). We ended up taking about his sister who has just paid over £17k to have IVF. I happned to say "£17K is a lot of money to me" and he said "well to me it isnt" and in that moment I realised that we were so different. Each month I scrape by t provide the boys clothes, school outsings, take Ollie to playgroup etc...and he thinks of £17k as nothing,,,,,

I'm so sorry to read how upset you are by your husband's attitude towards you at the moment.

Michelle it must be confusing that he is saying he thinks £17k is not a lot of money, yet saying that you cannot move to a bigger property with your two young children.

Can I ask how old your children are now? Have you spoken to him about you being a SAHM? I can see that you have tried working nights which is difficult with children to look after in the day, yet he did not offer any support to enable this, other than putting the children to bed.

Michelle do you think your relationship could benefit from couple counselling? Please take a look at this information about Relate & the services it offers, Relate - Netmums

I'm going to ask my colleague from Relate to take a look at your thread. It will take a few days for a reply as we all work part-time.

Hello. DS's are 3 and 6 years old. I am terrified of what they are going through. I have noticed a lot of bad behaviour has come on from eldest since we moved and OH atitude towads them has got worse and more verbally violent and threatening.

Thanks for explaining some more. You've said that your partner has become more verbally violent and threatening towards the children - that's so sad to read .

You've described a lot of bad behaviour from your older son - is it possible he's mimicking his Dad? If a child sees or hears abusive language, threats, violence etc then this is often the case . There is more information about that here: Domestic abuse: protecting children - Netmums
Can you describe some more about what is going on Michelle?

How is your husband towards you? Is he abusive towards you too sweetheart? .

You could speak with your local Health Visitor about what's going on at home, or alternatively if you're more comfortable to talk to someone over the phone then there are organisations such as Women's Aid who can listen and give you support.

Things sound pretty tough for all of you at the moment - it sounds like you're under a fair bit of pressure.

I've got this image of you all in that small flat and the pressure building up over money too.

Money! It's a really difficult topic to talk about and there's so many different ideas and attitudes to money.

The thing about his sister and him thinking that £17K doesn't sound like a lot of money doesn't seem very authentic if you see what I mean. There aren't too many people who wouldn't accept that this is a big sum. Okay, some people (like his sister can maybe afford £17K for IVF - but I'm sure most would still know that it's a hefty amount).

Your husband is clearly a man who does worry about money, he definitely sounds like he feels under financial pressure. My wild guess would be that he said that it wasn't a lot of money mostly because he felt like disagreeing with you. I guess that a lot of us do that sort of thing from time to time - we kind of disagree for the sake of starting an argument.

So what's happened since then, clearly you're happy about what he's being like with the children. It feels like something has pretty much got to change sometime soon.

Where's your head at just now Michelle - if you wanted to work this out with him is it going to be possible to get a conversation going or is it too risky to even try at the moment because of that anger?

I want to help you but I very much want to help in a way that keeps you and the children safe so come back for a chat, give us an update and we can take it from there. Does that sound okay?

Post again please. If you post anything that you would like me to reply to then please drop me a quick PM to let me know that youíve posted. That way Iíll be sure not to miss your posts.

Hi sorry for the delay in my response. I have been busy with work and Easter holidays. Thank you for your support Chris, I am in fact a professional freelance photographer.

At the moment things are pretty much as they were before, I am not sure where my head is. At the moment I have two friends who have separated from husbands and I dont want to do the same and people thinking I am just following the trend. In fact I don't think I want to separate at all. I do love DH very much, but I am terrified of the future, living here and each day that passes I feel we have gained nothing more and that in fact we are loosing out. By the time we have a nice house with a nice garden the kids will have moved out anyway!!

DH says that he is supportive of my job but then it always comes back on me when he says "well if you worked we could afford XYZ" but he doesnt see that when I am not "At" work, I am either with out youngest and being a mum to him 24/7, cleaning, ironing etc or when he is at nursery I spend up to 6 hours online sending emails, making phone calls in attempts to get work.

I just dont know what will happen at the moment we are plodding along.....

In response to Anna, thank you, no DH is not abusive to us in any physical way....to the children he just looses his temper quicker than he used to and tells them things like "well if you do XYZ again I am going to throw XYZ in the bin" that sort of thing......It just makes me sad to think that the children have to feel like they are always wrong. It comes of being stuck in the house with no garden and hardly space to move, If they play cars he moans about the noise of the wheels on the laminate, if they run he tells them to stop, if they roll about on each other he gets stroppy and moans that rhey will hurt themselves. Kids will be and need to be kids!

I can see that things are pretty much the same as when you posted last time. It must be hard for you all in the flat with two lively children.

Michelle, I'm a bit confused when reading through your original posts;

Tonight we chatted again about money as he still says we cant afford to move....(we can)

Each month I scrape by t provide the boys clothes, school outsings, take Ollie to playgroup etc...

I can see that you obviously love your husband but this issue of money and living in the flat is clearly affecting you. Is this a situation that can be changed, are you in a position to rent somewhere bigger?